Woke up still tired, rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and lay back down again. I could see the dishes in the sink in my mind's eye, and resolved to go and do them as soon as I got up. It was Saturday morning and I should have washed the dishes last night, and would have, if it hadn't been for the necessity of reading that article about a woman who found out she was Arthur Askey in a previous life, which had explained her lifelong fascination with bees. By the time I had finished reading, it was after midnight. I thought, 'it's too late to do those dishes, I will do them in the morning.'
Lying there in the warmth of the duvet, I drifted off into a reverie about what it would be like if the world was in black and white with no colour. But it was useless, as the visions in my dream kept coming back in colour and no matter how hard I tried they just refused to be black and white. I woke again, and again thought of the dishes. I slowly got out of bed, and put my slippers on, and noticed that one of the pom poms was missing. 'I will just find it before I do those dishes,' I thought. I got down on my hands and knees and began searching under the bed for the missing pom pom. I spotted it. It wasn't under the bed but under the wardrobe. I got up, went round to the wardrobe, but couldn't reach the pom pom. I, again, got up and went to the broom cupboard, took out the sweeping brush, and howked the pom pom out. I put the brush back and headed reluctantly towards the kitchen to do the dishes.
As I went into the kitchen, I thought of the sewing box in the drawer there. 'I might as well sew this pom pom back on before I do those dishes'. I retrieved the sewing box from the drawer and went into the sitting room. I sat down and began to sew the pom pom onto the slippers. Ouch! I pricked my finger with the needle, which necessitated me going back to the kitchen for an elastoplast. I tried to run my finger under the tap, but couldn't because the sink was full of dirty dishes. I then used the bathroom tap. I dried my finger and put the elastoplast on the pin prick, made my way back to the sitting room and finished sewing on the pom pom.
By this time I was feeling a bit hungry. I decided to make something to eat and then do the dishes. No point in doing them before, as I would only need to do them again afterwards. I thought 'if I had eggs I could have egg and bacon........if I had bacon'. I had neither and anyway the frying pan was in the sink with the dirty dishes. I settled for cereal. I prepared the cereal, went back into the living room, switched on the television and sat down to eat my cereal. I would do the dishes when I had finished eating.
The programme on the telly was about a man who had travelled over South America searching for a lost tribe of pygmy eating giants. Rivetting stuff, the dishes would have to wait. I couldn't miss this. I finished the cereal, and put the bowl in the sink with all the other dishes, and thought. 'I really must do these dishes, but I'll just watch the end of this programme first.' The man thought he was close to finding the pygmy eating giants, it was a waste of time really as he never did find them.
I got up to finally do the dishes, when the doorbell rang. I answered it and it was two well dressed Americans who told me they were Jehovah's Witnesses. I thought of the dishes, and invited them in. Two hours later I followed them to the door, asking if they wanted to hear about my experiences when I was a Buddhist Monk in the foothills of the Himalayas. They assured me that they would come back another day to hear about those experiences, and that my reminiscences of my time in the Atherius Society had been most interesting. 'Dishes, must do those dishes.' I had just closed the door behind the Jehovah's witnesses when the phone rang, it was my Mother. She began by telling me about two of her neighbours who had died that week, and that the woman across the road had put up fancy roman blinds. I said 'sorry Mum, can't talk at the moment I need to do these dishes. I left them last night and they are beginning to get crusty. Bye for now, luv you, speak to you later'. By this time it was four o'clock in the afternoon, and I was meeting Sandra at seven. I would have to leave the dishes until later. I got out my clothes and laid them on the bed and went for a nice long soak in the bath. I got dressed and went out, with the image of the dirty dishes still imprinted in my brain. When I got home I felt a bit tired, perhaps it was the wine, in any case I couldn't do the dishes tonight, I was whacked and I would have to do them in the morning.
Woke up still tired, rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and lay back down again. I could see the dishes in the sink in my mind's eye.
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